From a second floor window, I watched two women exit the van and enter the house. Suddenly I was nervous again. The women — MC and F — had flown in from Montreal. MC was from Quebec and her prior experience was a patchwork of tourism contracts strung together by changing seasons.
Most recently, she had worked at a heli-ski resort on the West Coast. F was also from Quebec, but had recently been living in Victoria, British Columbia on a house boat. She was a professional diver, photographer and guide. The summer before she had supported a ship crew along the coast of Greenland.
I tried to swallow the sudden sense of inadequacy that was washing over me. Later that day I would meet the final member of our team. An Inuk man from Labrador, W had a sun-kissed face and kind eyes.
His inherent wisdom was immediately evident. The three women lived in White Row, P and W lived in The Green House which, in addition to people, also housed our office and some equipment. For the first three weeks we worked nearly everyday. The weather was cold, windy, and mostly overcast. Much of the work was in preparation for the upcoming summer season. We were outside organizing storage containers, sifting through gear which had frozen solid in the previous winter.
At first I was startled by my loneliness. Dive head first into foreign experiences and unknown situations? Nor did I know the root of it.
I liked my team. They were all extremely proficient at their work and I could learn a lot from each of them. They were friendly; I enjoyed working with them each day.
I spent most of my time with W and MC. W would take me and the others snowmobiling on the frozen arctic ocean. He helped me shoot a rifle and showed me how to prepare a wild goose for dinner. MC had quick and witty humour which I appreciated when the work got mundane or the temperatures dropped ten below freezing. Plus, the age difference was becoming increasingly apparent. I had just turned The first few weeks living in Iqaluit, I cooked myself up a nice bowl of loneliness. Looking back on this, I realize how self-destructive and entitled this thinking was.
Of course my first commercial guiding job was not going to be a constant string of out-of-this-world experiences. Of course it was going to be cold — I was in the arctic! And obviously scrolling through Instagram was bad for my mental health I would eventually disable Instagram and create a new one for the sole purpose of sharing photos of my life in Iqaluit. There were a few moments in those early weeks where I really wanted to go home.
Suddenly my demeanour changed. Now I was angry, really angry. I was angry at myself for having sky high expectations matched with a poor attitude. Determination brewed inside of me as I walked back to my house on White Row. The next day I awoke the same person, but with a different mindset. How much I enjoyed living in Iqaluit was solely my responsibility. I sprang into action. First, I requested my weekly day off. My managers were happy to grant me the day off I was entitled to.
Second, I sought out ways to fill my time outside of work. I tried running, found a yoga studio, went on short solo hikes. Anything to get myself out of the house.
Soon after my resolution, I met someone named R. R was a professional diver who had worked with the guiding company for several seasons. He was passing through Iqaluit on route to another polar dive trip, but during his few days in Iqaluit he invited us all to a party. This party, Yurt Fest, was the catalyst for my new life in the north. At this party I met other people living in Iqaluit.
Unlike in the south, where you meet people and never see them again, these new people followed up. Did I want to join them for dinner the next day? Would I like to join them on an overnight camping trip next week? With these new friends, I went on hikes, explored the town and became a part of a micro-community. There is a cosmopolitan feel to the area and there is a wonderful and unique cultural and artistic life in Iqaluit.
Cost of living is high and you will also not find alcohol for sale — permits are required to fly it in for personal consumption. Most perishable goods are also flown in from the mainland and many items are subject to a mark-up in cost because of this. Despite the larger towns being more cosmopolitan, the whole territory is largely inhabited with people with an Inuit ethnic background.
Despite French being an official language, only 1. Strangely, Inuktitut is not considered an official language. Nunavut has the youngest median age in Canada of Furthermore, Nunavut has the lowest average age of mothers in Canada, having their first child at a rate 8 times the national average for teenage pregnancies. Although Nunavut boasts a youthful population it does have a high unemployment rate — The RCMP claims some dogs were lawfully destroyed over concerns about public health and safety; many Inuit say it was to urbanise them.
And yet minutes later, we come to a very different example of how Inuit coexist with southerners. Last year, Muslim leaders presented Inuit elders with a freshly slaughtered lamb. But they were quick to stress the difference between the lamb and Inuit staples, such as seal meat, caribou and arctic char. How do you belong?
Iqaluit shot to national prominence in after it was chosen by referendum to become the capital of Nunavut. The territory, finally formed in , gave Inuit in the region self-rule and control over their institutions. It made Iqaluit the political, cultural and economic hub of a bold Canadian endeavour in indigenous self-government. We could have Nunavut be as culturally distinct as Quebec is to the rest of English Canada, but from an Inuit perspective.
While Inuktitut is spoken by three-quarters of Inuit, English has become the de facto language of Iqaluit. Overshadowing all this is the immense task of running a city at the whims of the Arctic. During winter, temperatures in Iqaluit regularly drop below C with windchill, while darkness reigns for months.
To make matters more difficult, Iqaluit is the only capital city in Canada with no road or reliable ship connections to other parts of the country. For much of the year, all supplies must be flown in, sending the cost of living skyrocketing. Three or four times a year, depending on ice conditions in Frobisher Bay, a sealift boats in bulk supplies.
In recent years, an estimated cars have arrived in the city every year this way, as well as furniture and building materials for new homes. As little can get into Iqaluit, little can get out. As Iqaluit marked the longest day of the year, fire crews worked overtime to battle a blaze in the landfill. As a weary authority struggled to keep up with a city whose population has more than doubled, climate change began to set in.
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